Episode 52: The Superintendent's Reward

“Good morning!” the superintendent greeted the mayor. “Come to beg for a place in the new order?”

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll be regarding it as a ‘good morning’ when I’m through with you,” the mayor declared. “You and your clever schemes. ‘All publicity is good publicity,’ you said. ‘Why this will put us back on the map,’ you said. Well, you accomplished that at least. We’re back on the map, alright. As ground zero.”

“It’s not MY fault,” the superintendent declared. “I didn’t know there were going to be riots.”

“Not entirely, no,” the mayor acknowledged, “but I’m going to see YOU go down because of it.”

“You’re just jealous of me!” the superintendent declared. “You’re just mad because I made powerful friends, friends who are going to reward me by backing MY candidacy for your job.”

“You know,” the mayor replied, shaking his head, “I never wanted this damn job in the first place! I just wanted to live on my land, work in peace, and play at being a farmer in my spare time, but then the good old boys on the zoning board let their buddy ignore the rules. He built this abomination of a steel barn right next to my property line. The runoff turned my driveway into a quagmire. It took a handful of court cases and election campaigns to clean out the corruption and tear down the barn. Before I knew it, I ended up mayor to clean up the mess. I got stuck having to make sure everyone played nice and followed the rules because no one else would. Now, every time I think I can retire and get back to my farm, some poseur for power like you has to ruin it all by trying to trash the town all over again.”

“You can’t touch me!” the superintendent insisted. “I have friends now! I’m going to be in charge. It wasn’t MY fault things got out of hand.”

“Not nearly as out of hand as it would have been if the sheriff and I hadn’t stepped in,” the mayor pointed out. “Funny thing about apologies,” he added, “they’re admissions of guilt. They’re an acceptance of responsibility.”

“I wasn’t responsible!” the superintendent proclaimed. “I was trying to calm tensions! It would have been worse without me!”

“You said you ‘had Dr. Andrews’s back,’” the mayor glared at him. “You said you ‘supported him 100%.’ Well, you had his back alright, and then you plunged a knife right into it.”

“It wasn’t like that!” the superintendent protested. “It wasn’t like that at all! I was just trying to calm tensions…”

“It was EXACTLY like that,” the mayor interrupted him. “You didn’t calm tensions. You threw gas on the fire. You called Dr. Andrews a hateful, racist transphobe,” the mayor pointed out. “You’ll be lucky if the man doesn’t sue you for defamation.”

“Everyone KNOWS he’s a transphobe!” the superintendent claimed. “Everyone’s saying it! He IS the transphobe teacher. It’s all over the news! The court said so! I’m on the right side of history. You can’t touch me!”

“You know,” the mayor declared, “despite everything that happened, if you’d just kept your word with young Dr. Andrews, I’d have felt honor bound to keep faith with you, but you were willing to throw Dr. Andrews under the bus to try to save your own skin, so I feel no compunction against doing the same to you. ‘On behalf of the school district and the people of our community, I apologize,’ you said. ‘I accept responsibility,’ you said.

“So, congratulations. You’ve nominated yourself our scapegoat.” The mayor looked contemptuously at the superintendent. “This whole thing, riots and all, was your idea, and because of it, you’re fired.”

“You can’t do this!” the superintendent insisted. “Only the school board can fire me.”

“Exactly,” the mayor declared. “Only the school board can fire a district employee for cause.” He handed the superintendent a letter. “Here’s the unanimous resolution of the school board, meeting in the emergency session you refused to attend last night, firing you for cause. A step YOU didn’t take when you fired Dr. Andrews the other night. You had no authority to do so. You violated school district policy, and you violated the school district’s contract with Dr. Andrews.”

“There wasn’t time to convene the school board!” the superintendent bellowed. “It was an emergency!”

“You could have said you ‘recommended’ he be fired,” the mayor pointed out. “Instead, you declared that he was unequivocally fired, without securing the board’s consent first. We have you dead to rights.”

The superintendent read the board’s resolution of termination. “No severance!” the superintendent exploded in outrage. “I’m due a month’s severance for every year of service!”

“Not since you were fired for cause,” the mayor patiently explained. “Sadly, we’re losing Dr. Andrews. He doesn’t want to work for the school district anymore. Can’t say as I blame him. The school board also agreed to Dr. Andrews’s offer, conveyed by his attorney, Senator Travis, to waive any damages from your unilateral violation of his three-year contract by awarding him one of those two remaining years’ salary as compensation. You try to buck your own termination, and so help me the district will take YOU to court and make YOU pay for the settlement we had to offer Dr. Andrews. I can assure you, however divided the jury pool here may be on gender awareness, they are united with hatred toward the architect of the riot.”

“But it wasn’t MY fault!” the superintendent cried.

“You’re done in this town,” the mayor declared, “and I wouldn’t dream of trying to live or retire here, if I were you. Folks ’round here have long memories. End up in a hospital or nursing home, and you’ll be heading for a close encounter with a nice big fluffy pillow.”

“But they said I’d get to be mayor. They said I’d get a seat in the legislature!” the superintendent whimpered.

“Good luck getting your new friends to find you some new constituents who can tolerate you,” the mayor said dismissively. “I think you’re about to get a painful lesson in how evil doesn’t hesitate to throw its hapless minions under the bus the moment they’ve outlived their usefulness.”

“But it’s not my fault,” the superintendent gasped.

“I won’t be speaking to you again.” The mayor turned his back to the superintendent and walked away. “Goodbye.”